Sunday morning coffee post

If you saw on the photo blog, we lost our red Ford Explorer to an accident, but after getting payment from the insurance company we were able to buy a better Ford Explorer. It was really important to us to have a 4x4, even though we only use that feature once every few years. If you don't have it, you're walking! And last winter was big reminder of that. The last thing I posted was that the new Explorer was missing the title, but yesterday that was resolved and I now have the seller's title in my hand. The truck was registered in Washington, so next steps is getting it titled in Oregon which I hope to do on Tuesday.

The sun has finally come out and so we got our landscaper out here and they put the weed-eater to our acre and mowed it all down. It's so great. Auntie Shannon sent a bubble machine and the kids set it up outside and play in the lawn and bubbles for hours.

Next step is to refinish my lower deck. I am trying to get a pressure washer to come here and clean it, and then I'll sand and refinish it myself. I know I could pressure wash it myself but I don't want to.  My neighbor has a gas-powered pressure washer we could borrow, but it's a pain to start (like a lawnmower) and it's really heavy, and my lower deck is at the bottom of the hill. An electric pressure washer costs a bit more than pressure washing service, and Mike is starting to see the minimalist philosophy a bit more and realizes that if we bought one we'd also have to store it. So he said to hire someone. Now, getting someone to show up is always a problem. First guy did not show, though I would have been surprised if he did. Then my sister recommended Amazon Home Services, so I booked someone through there and he is supposed to show up on Tuesday. I would really like to get this deck finished because we actually have a friend who wants to come over and it would be nice to entertain on the deck. This photo is the "before" picture. Before the cleaning/refinishing and before the landscapers came.

So, long story short about the bathroom reno bc I don't really want to talk about it bc it's possible it wasn't really necessary but what's done is done. Downstairs bathroom really needs to be demolished completely, but I don't want to pay for that, so right now it's just missing the floor, ceiling, and has a window that needs replacing. Upstairs bathroom now requires a new floor after one 6" strip was pulled, down to the subfloor.

I'm not hiring a GC but instead going with specialists for each thing. That means getting a lot of bids, a lot of phone calls, a lot of no one calling me back, a lot of no shows. What fun!